Talk:Flag of Western Australia

Flag of Western Australia has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
October 5, 2020	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on September 27, 2020.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the direction of the black swan on the flag of Western Australia (pictured) was corrected in 1953, even though this issue was identified 17 years earlier?

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Heraldry and vexillology

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Swan

Any idea why they reversed the swan? My guess is to make it face the union jack rather than trying to "escape" it, but it's only a guess.

Another suggestion is that in the 1920s, the state nearly seceded from Australia, so perhaps that's why it looks westwards.

My assumption is that the swan facing the fly was fine for naval use, since the ensign on a wind-driven ship will flow forwards. On land, a flag carried on a staff will flow backwards. If usage shifts from naval use to land use, the swan will seem to swim the wrong way, which may be why they changed the flag. --Palnatoke 22:52, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Parlament house has been flying this flag for some time, are we in for a change? --Mitsuhama

Somehow I highly doubt Parliament House has ever flown that flag officially. A poor design like that would make our great state look more like a territory! --Snadder (talk) 10:48, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

swan direction

I suspect that the website that is referenced itself is lacking references. A quick search in Trove pulled up three articles that discuss the swan direction. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52938935 - Nov 1953 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52939910 - Nov 1953 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52936774 - Oct 1953

As can be noted, there was no clear consensus in 1953 about which way the swan should be facing. As such, to say that it "changed" in 1953 is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.30.234.37 (talk) 04:23, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 17:51, 21 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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Flag of Western Australia

... that the direction of the black swan on the flag of Western Australia (pictured) was corrected in 1953, even though this issue was identified 17 years before? Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

Reviewed: Protestant Film Commission

5x expanded by Bloom6132 (talk). Self-nominated at 11:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Hi Bloom6132, review follows: 5x expansion confirmed from 16 September; article is well written and cited inline throughout to reliable sources; I didn't pick up any overly close paraphrasing from a spot-check on sources; hook fact is interesting and mentioned in the article. I make the suggestion that "by the College of Arms" be added to the hook (after "identified") for some context but this is not essential; image is excellent, I can't access the image source but the Commons page says it has been released into the public domain by the creator and I am happy to AGF that it was; a QPQ has been carried out. Looks good to me - Dumelow (talk) 12:11, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Flag of Western Australia/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 03:55, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know a whole lot about heraldry, but I'll give it a look. Hog Farm _Bacon 03:55, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is more of a query than anything else, but has there been any sort of action with the flag since 1953? Any color tweaks? Is there any controversy over the flag, or any proposals to change the flag? Based on Google searches, I can't turn up any evidence of this (or of alternate flags), but it just seems odd for the history to drop off there. Maybe it's because I'm an American, and there's been all sorts of flag-related controversy because it seems like everything was based on the Confederate flag for awhile. If there's no updates after 1953, I guess there's nothing to say, but I feel like I ought to check up on that with you as part of this review. Actually, later in the article mentions the new proposed design by Ausflag. If this is significant, it should probably be described in the prose history. If it's not significant, why is it mentioned as an alternate?

From all the sources I've consulted, I'm fairly sure the flag has remained unchanged. The debate nowadays is between retaining the existing blue ensign vs. new design altogether. Ausflag is mentioned because the organization has garnered coverage in media (albeit the SMH article was written by the founder himself). Since it is from a non-profit "civilian" organization (and not one put forward by the government), the proposed design has not gained traction as a serious replacement candidate. Hence, it's not really that significant (at least not enough to merit a sentence in the prose). But since the SVG file exists and the sources seem to check out, I thought there's no harm in keeping its entry in the table. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If secondary sources mention the debate between the existing blue ensign vs new design, it should be mentioned. For instance, Flag of Mississippi covers the whole flag changing process. If the Ausflag design is only talked about by Ausflag, I'm wondering if WP:UNDUE is coming into play here.

The secondary sources do not mention the flag debate explicitly (just conjecture on my part). Ausflag isn't fringe, but they do seem to be in the minority, at least on state level (different from the national level [1][2]). —Bloom6132 (talk) 04:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a link for "in the fly"? It's a bit of a specialist term.

Yeah, it's under Glossary of vexillology#Flag elements, but that's already linked for hoist. Keeping in mind MOS:REPEATLINK, I'm still open to linking "in the fly" if you think it'll be helpful. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think this is one of those cases where you WP:IAR the overlink issue, since reader comprehension takes a higher priority than one simple overlink, and not a blatant one at that.

Done. —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"according to author Rodney James Giblett" - According to the author, to avoid the false title

Done. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that the link to the Deparment of the Premier and Cabinet link is useful, as it links to a governmental body in a different Australian state.

Oops, looks like I mixed up "Western" with "South". Linked to non-existent article, which should be fine per WP:REDLINK. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pecking order is a bit colloquial, at least in American use. Is there a different word that could be used instead to be in alignment with WP:TONE?

The term was used in my two comparable heraldry GAs (Flag of Manitoba and Flag of New Brunswick). I could use "hierarchy". —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reworded to "hierarchical order". Hope that works! —Bloom6132 (talk) 04:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a little weird to throw the Westralia Flag in there with no real explanation. If it's that significant, it deserves at least a brief prose mention somewhere

I wasn't the editor who added the Westralia flag (which was added while on the Main Page as the lead DYK hook). —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The fire service flag needs a citation

Only source mentioning that flag is Flags of the World, which I don't think is a reliable source (notwithstanding its article). —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no RS discussing it, I start to wonder if WP:GACR #3b would argue against its inclusion ...

Removed. —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lonely Planet has a mixed discussion on RS/N Is there a better source available for this?

LP was used without issue in Flag of Grenada (promoted to GA in August) and Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (promoted in 2017). —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The History Channel was deemed to be pretty marginal at a 2020 discussion. Find a better source

Removed source. No need to find replacement, since it was only used to supplement the main EB source (ref 3). —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, I've reused the gov't fact sheet (ref 7). —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:33, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Most of these are pretty open-ended, and I'm open to discussion on any of these. Hog Farm _Bacon 20:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: thanks very much for the review! I hope I've addressed your comments satisfactorily. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bloom6132: - I've got a couple more queries, mostly related to if some of those alternate flags comply with due coverage, if they aren't really spoken of in RS. This one's really close to passing now. Hog Farm _Bacon 01:12, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: no worries – responded to the second round of queries. —Bloom6132 (talk) 04:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bloom6132: - I noticed one last thing. The protocol section isn't summarized in the lead. Throw a sentence or two summarizing that section in there, and I'll pass it. Hog Farm _Bacon 14:15, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hog Farm: done. —Bloom6132 (talk) 14:27, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]